BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA INVITE FROM REFORMATION CHURCH-CHICAGO'S TOURISM JUSTICE MINISTRIES

Reformation Church-Chicago

("Young Barack Obama's community organizing sanctuary")

presents

BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA:

Chicago's Holidays Are Forever Jazz & Poetry

Candlelight Celebration

featuring

The Black Christmas and Cultural Holiday Works of African American Poet Laureate

Langston Hughes-Set to Jazz

with

Authentic Kwanzaa Candlelight Ceremony by NAKO-Chicago Study Group & Reformation's Kuumba Theater Ministry-featuring its Imani Sacred Jazz Ensemble  with the Dynamic South Side Vocalist, Ms. Nanette Frank, as Special Guest-

Saturday, December 26 & Sunday, December 27, 5PM-7:30PM, at Lutheran School of Theology-Chicago Chapel, 55th Street & University Avenue, Hyde Park

Admission $20 at http://www.kwanzaachicago.bpt.me 

Co-Sponsors: Chicago Peace Campaign, African Descent Ministries-ELCA, Reformation Church-Chicago's Tourism Justice Ministries, & Authentic Kwanzaa Sets from Sankore Press <http://www.sankorepress.com>

Contacts: 773-499-3323; 773-996-1066; or 773-355-8540; and 708-439-1628  

Reformation's Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa at Lutheran School of Theology Chapel-Hyde Park

Reformation Church-Chicago ("Young Barack Obama's Community Organizing sanctuary") will host its 1st Annual BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA: Chicago's Holidays are Forever Jazz & Poetry Candlelight Celebration, on Saturday, December 26 and Sunday December 27, 2015, 5:00PM-7:00PM at Lutheran School of Theology Chapel-Hyde Park, 55th Street  and University.

The unique holiday celebration will feature Reformation Church Chicago's Kuumba Theater Ministry presenting selections from Langston Hughes' Christmas (Black Nativity) and Black Sacred History & Culture poetry backed by the Afrocentrcity Church's vanguard Imani Jazz Ensemble with Tazama Sun on Sax, George Nutall on Key-Board, Ray Mosley on Lead Guitar, Darryl Mahon on Percussions, Ronald Steward on Bass Guitar and the dynamic Ms. Nanette Frank as their especially invited guest vocalist.

More, NAKO-Chicago Chapter's Kawaida Philosophy Study Group will conduct an authentic Kwanzaa Set-Up and Candlelight Service as a central feature of the BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA celebration.

BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA is a fundraiser for Reformation Church-Chicago's Emergency Boiler Repairs, Chicago Peace Campaign, and the African Descent Lutheran Association-Chicago Chapter's reorganization.  Online tickets at $20 per person are availible at brownpapertickets.com.   

   

BUDGETING OUR LSTC HYDE PARK FUNDRAISER

1. Reformation's Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz & Poetry Candlelight Service, like the original 1950s Jazz Vespers created by John Garcia Gensel-Lutheran Pastor to New York City's Jazz community,  is an emergency fundraiser for our church-that serves as the central gathering space of our outreach to the City's Africana artists and activists communities.  Specifically, we are challenged to meet essential boiler repairs for this coming Chicago's winter. 

Here, we need financial help with regard to securing either LSTC'S Chapel space or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park's Sanctuary in the form of one-or more-of the following three options:

A) an in-kind service as a part of either LSTC'S or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park's partnership and outreach to the Metro Chicago Synod's South Side Conference of African Descent Congregations-as in the past;

B) allow access to either space on a consignment basis i.e., deferring payment until we receive our gross ticket sales receipts via brownpapertickets.com; 

C) that the financing of either LSTC or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park space use be done via either maximally underwriting, thru ELCA African Descent Ministries Programming Desk, or its minimally guarantying space use payment-with the proviso that 20% of the net receipts of our event go to the reorganizing Chicago Chapter of the African Descent Lutheran Association; or

D) any combination thereof.

2.  About our fundraiser plan. 

2.1  According to Bob Berridge, LSTC VP of Operations, their Chapel seats 350-400 people-depending on the seating arrangement.   Alternatively, we estimate that Augustana Lutheran seats about 300.

2.2  Our fund raising goal is to raise from $12K to $14k gross.  

2.3  Our strategy is to market our event via brownpapertickets.com, itself a popular online ticket sales organization with its own built-in promotional capacity,  at $20 per person.  Note: We are talking here of doing two services with a goal of attracting 300 people per service via a vigorous electronic marketing campaign.

2.3  Reformation is providing the production.  We provide the performance script (inclusive of our Jazz music ministry, the selected Langston Hughes body of poetry as well as actor/readers).

2.4)  Reformation's team will also supply online outreach complimentary to that of brownpapertickets.com.  More, similar cooperation from ADLA Program Desk, LSTC Online Media, ADLA National Organization, and ADLA Chicago Chapter-reorganizing have the combined capacity to help reasonably meet our fundraiser goal.

2.4  Finally, Reformation's Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz & Poetry Candlelight Service should be seen for what it is: i.e., a much needed African American ministries contribution to the multicultural project of either LSTC or Augustana Lutheran-Hyde Park.  

Respectfully submitted: Rev. Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma) for Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz & Poetry Candlelight Service and Reformation Church Chicago ("Young Barack Obama's community organizing sanctuary"), 12-2-15 Updated.   

Key Notes on Reformation's Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz Vespers Holiday Service

1. About Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity-A Gospel Song Play."

1.1 Considered in his day as the "Poet Laureate of (Black) America," Langston Hughes (1902-1967) also holds the distinction of being recognized (among his peers) as the first widely successful African American/African world freelance writer i.e., the first Black writer to make his living solely by way of his work.

1.2 During the late 1940s and early 1950s Hughes, via trial and error, created a new literary genre which he called "the gospel-song play."

1.3 "Black Nativity (1953)" -then and now- stands as the most successful of Hughes's gospel-song plays (winning not only national but international acclaim).

1.4 More, to date, "Black Nativity" is the most popular holiday revival theater production among both Black Theater artists and audiences alike.   Note: The recent 2013 "Black Nativity" movie production, released during that year's holiday season, Co-Produced by T. D. Jakes, starring Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, and Jennifer Hudson, and easily accessible on the internet is a dramatic case in point of the Hughes gospel-song-play's continued popularity during the holiday season.

2. About Kwanzaa.

2.1 Created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at CSULB, Kwanzaa is the most widely celebrated African cultural holiday both in the U.S. and throughout the African world. 

2.2 Set apart as a time of ingathering of Africana families, communities, and cultures as well as a time for, to use the words of Dr. Karenga, "recommitment to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense," Kwanzaa is not necessarily in contrast with but serves as a compliment to Hughes' "Black Nativity."

2.3 The above said Reformation Church-Chicago's service of BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA JAZZ VESPERS (A Holidays Are Forever Candlelight Celebration) is envisioned as a unique combining of both excerpts from Hughes' Africana Christmas works as well as excerpts from his Black History and culture works-covering both the Black American and African world experience and history-that serves as a complimentary segue into the Kwanzaa dimension of our distinctive holiday celebration.

3.  About Jazz Vespers.

3.1 Reformation's Jazz Vespers is an evening candlelight worship service organized to serve the African American Jazz community especially but not exclusively.  It is the key outreach arm of Reformation's Jazz Ministry to the Chicago's Africana activists' and artists' communities.  Ours is an uplifting spiritual and not simply an entertainment service.  Reformation's Jazz Vespers is emergent to uplift inner-city Chicago's engaged social actors and creative artists as well as their families and immediate communities.

The target launch dates for "Black Nativity Meets Kwanzaa Jazz Vespers" are Saturday evening, 26 December, 2015 and Sunday evening 27, December, 2015 respectively.

Respectfully submitted: Pastor Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma) for Reformation Church-Chicago's COJAM and BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA JAZZ VERSPERS, Updated: 11/4/15.

Our Cause

About Us

"Let envoys come out of Egypt; Let Ethiopia hasten her gifts to God." -Psalm 68:31-

1.1) Coalition of Jazz Ministries (COJAM) is the brainchild of Rev. Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma), Lead Pastor of Reformation Church-Chicago (ELCA), the African American Lutheran Congregation on the Far South Side at 11310 S. Forest, in the historic Roseland/Pullman community.

1.2) The idea of COJAM initially flows from the need of Pastor Washington (Sangoma) to alternatively base his Imani Jazz Ministry project (IJM) not only on the Far South Side but also in other South Side communities (particularly of the lower-end) such as the Hyde Park community that serves as a diverse South Side intellectual and cultural hub and an ideal incubator for sprouting and growing a viable Chicago-based Jazz Ministry to the inner-city Jazz community.   Other prospective South Side community options are the Bronzeville as well as the Fuller Park communities.

More, COJAM is emergent in the distinctive mission to the Jazz community tradition pioneered by Duke Ellington's "Shepherd that watches over the night flock," Rev. John Garcia Gensel (1917-1997) of New York City's St. Peter's Lutheran Church-still serving the Jazz World at the intersection of 54th Street and Lexington Avenue-from which Washington (Sangoma) originally hails and is a resource for his ministry. 

1.3) COJAM'S key outreach arm is its Jazz Vespers Liturgy (public service) out of the Historic Black Freedom Church context.  More, Washington's (Sangoma's) Jazz ministry to the South Side Jazz community is informed not only by the ancient church vespers service, the Historic Black Freedom Church thrust and Rev. Gensel's ministry, but also by the Kawaida Cultural Nationalist Philosophy for Racial and Social Justice, created, defined, developed, and advanced by the distinguished Afrocentricity Activist/Scholar and Social Ethicist Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at California State University-Long Beach.  

More, Dr. Karenga is also the Creator of the African American/Pan African Holiday of Kwanzaa (a celebration of family, community, and culture) and the N'GUZO SABA (The Seven Principles) that serve as cultural grounding for independent Black institutions throughout the U.S. and internationally. 

1.4) COJAM seeks to launch its lower South Side initiative during the upcoming 2015 holiday season meaning on both Saturday evening December, 26th, or Sunday evening December 27th, 2015.  Our inaugural theme is: "BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA JAZZ & POETRY VESPERS:  A Holidays Are Forever Candlelight Celebration."  

More, COJAM'S inaugural Jazz Vespers will feature excerpts from the Black Nativity Gospel-Song Play of African American Poet Laureate Langston Hughes as well as both selections from his forgotten Christmas poetry combined with selections from Hughes' Black history/Black world poems.   

1.5) This said our inaugural Hyde Park Jazz Vespers is promoted to raise moral, active, and financial support for the Jazz Ministry outreach arm of of Washington's (Sangoma's) Reformation Church-Chicago on the one hand and on the other for Washington's (Sangoma's) idea  to establish, strengthen, and expand a new Black Evangelical national publication under the banner of AFRICAN DESCENT LUTHERAN AGENDA (AFDA).

1.6) More, COJAM understands itself as an interfaith and moral communities project of an informal collectivity of Black faith-based activists.  We seek to eventually become a national coalition created out of key activists and scholars conversations occurring around the recently held 2015 N'GUZO SABA Conference-celebrating 50 years of service, struggle, and institution building via the Seven Principles, the African American Cultural Center/Us of Los Angeles, and the Kawaida Philosophy advanced by Dr. Karenga.

1.7) COJAM'S ultimate aim is that of promoting an International African Arts Festival at Chicago State University in 2016.  We also aim to create a website that houses the video tapes not only of the 2015 N'GUZO SABA Conference, but of the collection of lectures and discussions presented, organized and chaired by Dr. Karenga over the last 20 years.  The point here is to create a online video resource serving Black Studies faculty, students, and faith-based community activists concerned with pursuing the Kawaida Racial and Social Justice Philosophy approach to the field of Afrocentricity and Black liberation thought and practice. 

1.8) COJAM'S first Jazz Vespers venue of choice in Hyde Park is the LUTHERAN SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY CHICAGO CHAPEL (LSTCC) because of its already existing connection to Reformation Church-Chicago via both the Metro Chicago Synod South Conference and its Social Justice Contextual Education Project led by LSTC'S Dr. Richard Perry in which Washington's (Sangoma's) Reformation Church-Chicago has served as a participant. 

More, the newly appointed LSTC Dean of Chapel and Pastor to the Community, Rev. Dr. Harvard Stephens Jr., is both an accomplished Jazz musician as well as a distinguished, second generation Lutheran Pastor of long-standing executive leadership experience within the ELCA.  This is not to say that we already have the formal support of LSTC in hand however.  It is only to say that, going immediately forward, gaining said moral and active support of LSTC, particularly its Dean of Chapel, for our ministry is an important priority of COJAM. 

1.9) We, furthermore, invite the moral, active, and financial support of all Hyde Park institutions regarding COJAM'S ministry  generally its inaugural BLACK NATIVITY MEETS KWANZAA JAZZ VESPERS particularly.

Rev. Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma), Reformation Church-Chicago and for COJAM, 10/21/15 Updated.